Bones Show Bosses Talks On The Season 8 Premiere, FBI Escape & More

This season of Bones finds Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel) accused of murder and running from the FBI with the help of her father Max (guest star Ryan O’Neal). Meanwhile Booth (David Boreanaz) and the Jeffersonian team struggle to find out how Christopher Pelant (Andrew Leeds) has manipulated evidence to plant Brennan at the scene of the crime. During to a conference call, TV Equals was able to gather from Bones’ executive producers Hart Hanson and Stephen Nathan about the show, how they would escape from the FBI and more.

Updated theme music and opening credits

If you’re a big fan of Bones, you will probably be a little shocked to see the updated theme music and opening credits. Hanson and Nathan opened up about the change.

“You know it’s just like most things, the change on Bones, I just woke in the middle of the night and thought Crystal Method basically invented the concept of remixing,” said Hanson. “Here we were going into an eighth season and Stephen and I had discussed just a slight almost unseeable, unhearable…sense of tone change. I thought let’s see if the Crystal Method guys, Ken and Scott, would be up to doing a little remix for us, and they were.”

“They really did a phenomenal job, because we didn’t want to lose what the theme was, what the original was, but they just managed to take it and update it and make it fresh,” said Nathan. “We usually update the visuals every year, and this was just gravy. They just did a phenomenal job. I love the new song. Yes, the Twitter world has already told us how much they hate it, so we know we’re on the right track, something changed.”

This season’s bad guys

Pelant has been one of the big baddies on Bones for a while and it seems like he’s going to affect this season in an elusive fashion.

“He’s going to be around all season,” said Nathan. “He’ll come and go, but Hart and I both hate serial killers as a rule; but we loved this guy, and he’s just the most interesting multiple murderer that we’ve ever had on the show. He’s going to kind of color Season 8 a bit. [N]o one is going to be able to rest easy in Season 8.”

Booth’s and Brennan’s family members to make guest appearances

When asked if either Brennan or Booth’s family members will make appearances, Nathan said, “Yes, definitely.”

“Brennan’s dad will be back and we hope to have. Booth’s grandfather, and maybe even meet a couple of other family members,” he said.

Hanson also said, “I hope Billy Gibbons will be back [as the father of Angela, played by Michaela Conlin] because that’s just total fun for us to play. Also we are looking at storylines that—still in nascent storylines we have a story for Hodgins’ brother that we may visit; and we’ve very interested in the back nine somewhere in meeting Booth’s mom and having Booth’s mom meet Brennan. But we haven’t figured out that story yet, but it’s in our bin. It’s about time to see Booth’s family a little bit.”

Hanson addressed a question a lot of the show’s fans have wondered about concerning Brennan’s cousin. “Everybody always asks if we’re going to have Brennan’s cousin, Margaret, who is played by Zooey Deschanel, but she seems very, very busy on her own show,” he said.

Camille’s love life

Fans have been anticipating on meeting Camille’s (Tamara Taylor) special someone. Hanson said that the identity of her special someone is someone you wouldn’t think of. “It is not someone you won’t recognize. That’s about all we’re saying about it,” he said. “It’s not a brand new person. It’s someone that the fans will recognize, and if we’re good, they didn’t see it coming. If we’re not, they’ll see it coming.”

Brennan and Booth’s reunion

The reuniting scene between Brennan and Booth became more heated than what was originally intended. All of this was thanks to the actors.

“They did have fun [filming the scene]. In fact we had written one reunion, and they came and said can we go a little farther with this, and so we upped, let’s say, the energy of them seeing each other again,” said Hanson. “It’s one of those things that you discuss at great length is how mad is Booth at Brennan? How anxious are they to see each other, and how does all of this manifest in one split second? So we ended up talking to them about it and to the director, Ian Toynton, who’s our directing producer, and that is where we got, and we were pretty pleased with—there’s nothing better than having actors come to you and say they want to do more and not less, especially going into the beginning of Season 8. So we were tickled with it.”

How they would escape from the FBI

When asked by TV Equals how they would escape from the FBI, Nathan and Hanson gave very entertaining answers.

“I think I would fail miserably,” said Hanson. “Going on the lam and being off the grid is so hard when you do any kind of research into it. I think they’d catch me the first time I stopped to get gas.”

“I know exactly what I would do,” said Nathan. “I would call the writers and ask them how the [sic] am I supposed to get out of this.”

Watch the season premiere of Bones Monday, September 17 at 8/7c on FOX.

For more interviews on Bones, watch our Comic Con interviews of Bones star David Boreanaz and series creator:

About The Author

Monique Jones is a freelance entertainment writer who also runs Moniqueblog.net, a site analyzing how race and culture are perceived in American entertainment. She has been published on ShockYa, Racialicious, Topless Robot and more.

I was so excited to see the premiere of Bones last
night. It was a great way to bring
everyone back together especially since season 7 was, in part due to Deschanel’s
maternity leave, and a short season, weaker than seasons past. I work nights at Dish and I missed the
original airing of the premiere. Thanks
to my Hopper DVR, I had the premiere waiting for me when I got home. It records the four major networks during
prime time so I have every new show in prime time automatically. I like the thought of having Pelant as a
regular bad guy for the crew to come up against. I think the computer hacker villain is clever
and easy to write for as well.